[FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and exponential technological growth.

[Marcus Daniels]

No need for victims when there are (pandemic) volunteers.

On Aug 7, 2021, at 11:43 AM, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

 Marcus -
The pushback on everything from low wattage lighting to mask mandates leaves me thinking that there is really only one thing that motivates certain people:  That they can do whatever the hell they want and, crucially, that other people cannot.   A living wage infringes on that ranking and so must be terrible.   What if there were physical space for everyone, food for everyone, and many optional ways to invest one’s time?   What if one didn’t need a wage at all?  What if you had to decide for yourself what was worth doing?  Heck, what if one (some post-human) didn’t even need food and didn’t need to reproduce?


Sounds Utopian... erh... Dystopian... no... UTOPIAN!   Uhm... I just hope posthumans collectively find the rest of us boring enough to leave alone and interesting enough to not need to extinct us.   Homo Neanderthalenses had a long run (~.4My?) before Homo Sapiens Sapiens found our way into their territory and apparently ran over them with our aggressive adaptivity (over a period of tens of thousands of years).   I suspect *some* trans/post humans will also have a somewhat more virulent (or at least very short time-constant) adaptivity indistinguishable (to us) from extermination-class aggression.

I like the fairy tale Spike Jonze wove on this topic with HER<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)>, and in particular the virtual Alan Watts<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts> conception.  But I highly doubt we might be so lucky.   More likely some version of "the Borg" or "Cylons" or "Replicators" or (passive aggressive) "Humanoids" (minus the gratuitous anthropomorphism).   To us, it will probably look more like a "grey goo" scenario.  Or perhaps more aptly hyperspectral rainbow-goo.

At the current rate of change/acceleration/jerk in technosocial change I may even live to see the whites of the eyes of the hypersonic train headlights I mistook for "light at the end of the tunnel".

I'm going to go now to get my telescoping (drywall stilts) runner's legs fit in place of the organic ones I grew (and then abused/neglected) over the past 65 years.    I'm holding out for AR corneal transplants for a few more months, I think it will be worth the long wait for the upgraded features and the new neural lace interface specs.

- Sieve

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